Individual 1 For President

Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres…

A sitting member of Congress is indicted and it’s like the fourth biggest story of the day. Oh also he was the second lawmaker to endorse Trump. The first, Rep. Chris Collins, has also been indicted. This is real life. https://t.co/WsICzWOsjh

— Eric Geller (@ericgeller) August 21, 2018

Legacy
Adam Serwer notes the very American precedents for the Trump kleptocracy… and also reports that these two paragraphs have inspired a great deal of hate mail:

Many commentators have described that kind of authoritarianism as foreign to the United States. But it isn’t. It has its inspiration and precursor in the racial kleptocracy of the Jim Crow South, in which states were essentially criminal enterprises that existed to expropriate black wealth, exploit black labor, disenfranchise black voters, and shield acts of racist terrorism and violence from prosecution.
Remnants of this society are still with us, from mass incarceration, to discrimination against black jurors, to stand-your-ground laws. But alongside it, America retains a system in which the wealthy remain largely immune to [punishment for] financial crimes. Weak laws and regulations make the prosecution of financial crimes difficult, and prosecutors are often loath to pursue individuals who might be able to fill their campaign coffers come election time. Whether the president is Barack Obama or Donald Trump, the rich can afford a different kind of justice than everyone else.

Big ideas
What is the fate of capitalism? Well, that depends on what you mean by “capitalism” doesn’t it?

Seattle fears becoming San Francisco, split between wealth and shitting in the streets.

Article suggestions from our friend Kevin: Slavery inspired Taylorism, the root of modern management theory; Do robots already rule the world?

Cultivating joy
Big cats carrying big kittens
Cats are liquid. Pro and con.